AP Spanish Language Syllabus SCASD: D. Webber 2006-7

BackgroundState College Area High School is located in central Pennsylvania near The

Pennsylvania State University. It is a public institution whose population is fed by ten elementary schools and two middle schools. Total enrollment for the district nears 7300. The high school comprises grades nine through twelve, approximately 2400 students. Two separate buildings, situated across the street from one another, between which the pupils travel from one period to the next depending upon subject area and regardless of grade level, are used for instruction. Courses range from regular to honors and advanced. The graduation rate is 96%, and about 86% of those graduates move on to institutions of higher education.

SCASD offers around fifteen advanced placement courses, three of which are for the German, French, and Spanish languages. It is during the sixth grade middle school year that SCASD students typically begin to explore which language they would like to learn. After that, they normally attend and every-other-day program for seventh grade and level I for eighth grade, in order to be prepared for level V by senior year. Some students elect to take the AP® exam during level four, and some not at all. Classes for Spanish V 2006-7 are expected to be three sections of twenty students each.

Course DescriptionThis course consists of skill building toward communicative competence using a

communicative language teaching format as described by Savignon (1983, 1997). This naturally involves practicing the oft-mentioned ‘four skills’ of reading, writing, listening, and speaking, plus culture in preparation for the Advanced Placement® Spanish Language Examination. A wide variety of instructional activities and assessments are employed to ensure a highly interactive and stimulating class. Students navigate a cross-curricular review of message mechanisms present in a multi-genre, international selection of works spanning recent centuries and modern times. They will use what they learn in practical applications with an eye toward constant improvement and an attitude of lifelong learning, demonstrating cognizance of the value of conference.

Course ObjectivesStudents will regularly participate in discourse involving a continuum of

variations in personal contacts and attempt to analyze the significances which hone critical thinking, reflective observation, and self-evaluation skills. In the process, they will apply personally relevant decoding and disquisitive strategies with regard to several content areas and props to increase accuracy of expression and reception of information. In so doing, they will convey and interpret meaning through several vessels of colloquy, exploring culturally-associated themes and common threads through a multitude of exercises. Students will gain exposure to available and appropriate Spanish language media to the maximum possible extent.

RationaleFirst priorities are helping students to personally connect with the material and

building classroom community. Focus is on development within the four facets of communicative competence: sociocultural, strategic, discourse, and grammatical. Understanding of the social context, using coping mechanisms to avoid communication breakdown, maintaining the interconnectedness of the dialogue, and attending to grammar are essential to interchange. Through specially designed events, participators negotiate meaning as they share information while keeping in mind their social roles and the function of their interaction. They attend to turn-taking, appropriateness of content, tone of their message and nonverbal cues. They ask for information, clarify, circumlocute when necessary, and use other unique resources depending upon mode of communication . . . and other linguistic agents to maintain contact with their partner(s).

This method of ‘talking’ permits language evolution – ways of speaking construct ways of understanding, and vice versa. Learners process information in top-down and bottom-up fashion, using the gist to interpret particular pieces of the message while at other times considering the discrete items in the text to determine meaning of the whole. And nurturing coherence (relation of sentences to topic) and cohesion (local connectors, structural links) during the exchange can be especially challenging depending again on mode of communication and number of interlocutors involved. Of course, they employ rules of lexicon, morphology, syntax, and phonology to facilitate comprehension and expression.

Savignon’s Communicative Language Teaching Model includes the components of Language Arts, Language for a Purpose, My Language is Me (personal use of the language being learned), You’ll be – I’ll be (theatre arts), and Beyond the Classroom.This format allows for gradual student development within Spanish. It provides an atmosphere in which students are able to learn through errors, converse about current events, cross-curricular issues, and personal interests, nurture their own Spanish identity, and revert to English when necessary rather than to constantly strive toward an imaginary ‘native-like’ communication style. The teacher guides while the student functions in Spanish managing messages.

ActivitiesStudents perform and/or view skits, dialogues, plays, vignettes, pantomimes. They

socialize with Spanish speakers and explore all available media pertinent to Spanish. They participate in short informal debates, interviews, question-and-answer sessions, peer presentations, elaborations, summaries, translations (if desired), vocabulary-building, self-revision, brainstorming, revising according to teacher and peer feedback to include pinpointing errors, cuing, providing sample answers, rephrasing, directly correcting, and so on. Other classroom events include intralevel and interlevel peer revision, monitoring one another and sometimes suggesting corrections, public rewriting using LCD projector, games, word play, inventing, creating, and demonstrating. Students use teacher made materials, magazines, the internet, manipulatives, classroom displays, artifacts, and any other resources available.

Communicative competence is measured in terms of fluency, comprehensibility, effort, and amount of communication in unrehearsed tasks. Evaluation is ongoing and emphasizes abilities of learners. It takes into consideration the dynamic negotiation of

meaning in addition to written, spoken, paralinguistic, and non-verbal aspects of output. Although this is not precisely consistent with perhaps more stereotypical pedagogical approach, it is believed that students will achieve acceptable scores on the AP test via the experience they gain through this course.

The instructor supplements text units to include various genres of literature, art, music, and foods pertinent to each major Spanish-speaking country. Students have some choice in studying pieces and people from times which most interest them. They are not limited to instructor suggestions, which are not meant to be exhaustive and which are based upon materials most immediately available in our educational context. The chart below is intended not to be the end all and be all but rather used as a starting point, for reference.

Of course, typical grammar exercises, practice sheets, and paper-and-pencil text-based tests are used along with multiple choice reading comprehension, multiple choice listening practices, in-class essays, and picture story practices recorded on computer, commensurate with the AP® exam sections.

The AP® exam is held usually during the first full week in May, which is a month before final exams begin in our school district. Also, not all students take the exam. Therefore, presentations and senior speeches are given during the last month of class and commensurate instruction and evaluation continues. All students participate in the culminating activity for the year during final exam time.

Course OutlineMo L

ess

Vocab Grammar Culture Literature Commun Blog IM

Sept 1 Family Present Spain choice Audience Firstweek ofschool

Summer

Adjective indicative art all genres Essay Me GossipEmotion Regular Goya Un-

Known(El Cid)

Luck and destiny vs. effort

Family Home-coming

Inter-personalrelations

-ar Dali DonJuanManuel

Neigh-bors

Spain

-er Picasso Anony-mous

-ir Miro CervantesIrregular Velas-

quezLope de Vega

Ser vs.estar

Tirso deMolina

Conocer vs. saber

music Calderónde la

BarcaExpress--ions of

flamen-co

Moratín

estar Duque deRivas

tener Caballerodar Espron-

cedaponer Las

Ket-chup

Larra

hacer Ella Baila Sola

Zorilla

Stem-changers

Alejan-dro Sanz

Valera

Presentprogress-ive

Jarabe de Palo

Alarcón

Personal‘a’

Enri-queIglesias

Bécquer

Directobjectpronouns

foods Perez Galdós

Indirectobjectpronouns

paella Pardo Bazán

Doubleobjectpronouns

orange Clarín

AP pract. flan UnamunoProjectchoice

Blasco-Ibañez

fan ValleInclán

selfportrait

Baroja

Islamic tile

Machado

Tres Reyes

GarcíaLorca

Bullfight

CamiloJosé

report CelaDelibesMatuteMadrid

Oct 2 Education Possess-ives

Mexico Sor Juanade la Cruz

Purpose Pet peeves

Schooldances

long art Paz The oppos-ite sex

What’s funny

short Rivera Rulfo Fall Hallowe-en

adjective vs. pronoun

Siquei-ros

Fuentes Blogs Open topic

Articles Posada Gradesdefinite Orozcoindefinite Kahloexception Ro-

meroomission musicPreterite Selenaregular Lara &

Reyes-ar Juan

Gabriel-er / -ir Sin

Ban-dera

Imperfect CarlosSanta-na

regular Luis Miguel

-ar Thalia-er / -ir foodirregular tamale

salsaavaca-doProjectPinataHui-chul yarn

paint-ingTin roosterAztec Sun GodTree of LifePaper flowersPapel picadoCala-verascascaronesOjo de Diosmural

Nov 3 Sports Relative pronouns

Chile,Peru,Ecua-dor

Mistral,Neruda,Bombal,Donoso,Rojas

Reading in action

Sports Spanish class

AP Pract. art GonzalesPrada,Vargas Llosa,IsabelAllende

Original poetry

sports

TatianaAla-mos

Juan LeonMera,JuanMontalvo& JuliaErazoDelgado

Thanksgiving

Priorities

Johan-na Ham-man

Apply-ing to Univ.

In class Thanks-givingpreterite

Oswal-do Guaya-

saminmusicParra, Los Jaivas, La ley,KudaiInkari,Inyec-tores, 6 voltios,Campode AlmasSan-Janito, Sisa Picari,Julian PontonfoodBeef, garbanzo, grape, flauta, chongoGuinea pig, corn, lime, bread, ice creamTuna, lettuce, papaya, potato, mayon-naiseProjectJoyas de plataDance cape

Dec 4 CustomsTradition

Equal,Unequal

Para-guay,Bolivia

HeribCamposCervera

Createcontext

Winter Withteacher

Por/para art AdelaZamudio

Sense of humor

Para-guay

emotions

Subjun-tive

Adri-anaVilla-gra

Christ-mas

Snowdays

usos Mel-chor Perez HolgunBolivia Web

Reso-lution

present musicimperfect Ramón

Ro-meroAn-deanfoodSopa, pump-kin, melon, cassava cheesePork, yucca, mango, amar-anth, turtle eggsProjectSculp-turemosaic

Jan 5 Body Impera-tive

Colom-bia,Vene-zuela

GarcíaMarquez

Pre-readingstrategy

music In classaboutbreak

Health formal art AndrésEloyBlanco

S.C. Inservicedaysactivities

informal Fernando Botero

food

affirma-tive

JesúsSoto,ArturoMiche-lena,Cristó-balRojas

Newsem-ester

negative musicAP pract. Juanes,

ShakiraJose LuisRodri-guez, GuacofoodGoat, guasca,Pita-haya, ham cres-cents,Pud-dingRabbit, arti-choke, pine-apple,arepa, cream punchprojectcarvingphotos

Feb 6 Travel Pastparticiple

CostaRica

Jorge Debravo

Context-ual clues

Re-writeessay

assignedpartner

Presentperfect

art Oscar Arias

Environ-ment

Valen-tines

4 people

Pluper- Francis PA

fect co Ami-ghettimusic journalMarim-bafoodChick-enBeansCoco-nutRiceHor-chataprojectcart

Mar 7 Food Future Hondu-ras, Nicara-gua, Pana-ma, Guate-mala

Guillén Zelaya, HeliodoroValle,Clementi-na SuarezOscarAcosta

React & reflect

Vaca-tionfuture

In classBreakpreterite

Conditional

art RubénDarío

Analysis,reaction

Class-mate

Learning style groups

Future perfect

Anto-nio Vinci-guerra

RicardoMiro

US

Conditional perfect

Mario Madri-gal Arcía

Asturias, Santos

Spring

Gender Juan Manuel Cedeñovariousof San Pedro La LagunamusicKaoti-

cos, TarotMejia GodoyRubénBladesSergio Nava-rrete PellicerfoodConch, celery, lime, pupusa,Choco-lateNut, spinachguava,wheat,quaja-daIguana, capers, palm, noodlecot-tage cheeseOyster, radish, passion fruit, yam, custardprojectPaper chick-enWorry dollMolaBird puppet,plate,

clay bank, woven animalito or wildcat

Apr 8 News Present perfect subjunc-tive

Span-ish speakerin USA

Jack Agüeros

Good Writers

music Easter

Preterite perfect subjunc-tive

art Various popular kids’stories

Learning anotherlanguage

Liter-ature

senioritis

AP Pract. Mich-ael Lucero

art

music AP exams

Christina Agui-leraJen-nifer LopezMarc Anth-onyfoodHuevos ran-cheros“hot” arti-choke dipStraw-berry enchi-ladaspastabananaprojectArchi-tecture

may 9 Entertain-ment

ReviewSubjunc-tive

Uru-guay,Argen-tina

Quiroga, Silva Valdez

Begin-nig, end

world Prom

Preposi-tions

art Cortazar,Ocampo,Borges

money Univer-sity

Gradua-tion

Verbs with preposi-tions

Jorge Paez Vilaro

Sum-mer

Infinitive Siulnas Who am I?

musicCar-men Alva-rezRicar-do Monta-ner, Sin Bande-ra, Diego Torres, Nata-lia Oreio-ro, Van Der WaalsfoodSaus-age, lentils,apple,noqui, yogurtAsado, pepper,lemon,empa-nada, sweet

milkprojectCarica-ture

Jun 10

Profes-sions

Passive voice

Cuba,Puerto Rico, Domin-ican Repub-lic

Avellane-da, Marti, Batista, Carpen-tier

Question Good-bye

none

Se art Benitez, Blanco, de Burgos, Soto, Carrero

Prenup

Expres-sions

Mario Carre-no, Amelia PelaezWifre-do Lam, Paul Sierra, Elena Maza

Cabral, Gonzalez

Obed GomezAda Balca-cermusicCelia Cruz, Gloria EstefanRicky Martin, Oscar de la Hoya, Carlos Ponce

Los Ilega-lesfoodLamb, cucumber, mameymalan-ga, sour creamclams, chay-ote, grape-fruit, yautia, butterCrab, olive, plan-tain, da-sheen,batidoprojectfrescogourd bowlmask

Fin. Senior speech

Interview/ Presenta-tion

Listen and re-spond.

In-class; surprise topic (quote from movie)

AssessmentGrades are based upon observable performance contextually situated, which is the

focus of assessment for communicative competence. Peer assessment and self assessment are also included. Aside from the scoring procedures described on the AP® website for essays and speech samples, a variety of rubrics is used depending upon the activity.

This course structure is expected to result in a broadly-based dynamic, engaging, and inclusive learner-centered environment that is accessible, understandable, fair, and

minimally stressful but challenging. It is commensurate with national, state, and local standards for World Language learning. It is to be hoped that this arrangement will produce consistency of scores regarding course grade and AP® test score (for those who take it, and relevance even for the few that do not), and actual communicative competence in Spanish. Some examples follow:

IM Homework points - 5 submitted in proper format on time.4 submitted on time but not in proper format.3 submitted 1-3 days late but in proper format.2 submitted late and not in proper format.1 submitted too late to include in class discussion.

* extra point if conversation includes aspects of most recent lesson.

Blog Homework points - Entry: 9 sentences, 1 point each.Additional point for required response to another blog.Additional point for required response to someone who

responded to your blog as well.Total – 99 per marking period. Final point – all on time.

AP Practice points - One point for every correct multiple choice answer.

Participation - Weekly online self assessment as shown below.

La Nota de Participación

Nombre (Español y Apellido)

Fecha

período: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Las Preguntas (¿Apoyaste a otros en participar?) nunca rara vez a veces mucho siempre

1. ¿ Has hecho la tarea? 0 1 2 3 42. ¿ Has hablado en Español con la Sra.? 0 1 2 3 43. ¿ Usaste el Español durante actividades? 0 1 2 3 44. ¿ Lo usaste en la clase con los compañeros? 0 1 2 3 45. ¿ Tuviste una actitud buena? 0 1 2 3 4

Vocabulary and Grammar - Regular textbook-type tests.

Culture points - Range from 0-20 depending upon complexity of student

choice for project done.

Resources

Gomez, Aurelia. (1992) Crafts of Many Cultures. New York, NY: Scholastic, Inc.

Jarvis, A.C., Lebredo, R., and Mena-Ayllon, F. (2003) ¡Continuemos! Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Co.

Kauchak, D., Eggen, P., and Burbank, M.D. (2005). Charting a professional course: Issues and controversies in education. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Person Prentice Hall.

National Standards in Foreign Language Education Project, Standard for Foreign Language Learning in the 21st Century. Lawrence, Kansas: Allen Press, 1999

Pennsylvania Department of Education. (2002) Proposed Academic Standards for World Languages. http://www.pde.state.pa.us/stateboard_ed/lib/stateboard_ed/Classical%20Modern.Combo%205.16.02.pdf. Accessed July 16, 2006.

Sandstedt, L., Kite, R., and Copeland, J.G. (2004) Literatura y Arte: Intermediate Spanish. Boston: MA: Heinle.

Savignon, S. (1983). Communicative Competence: Theory and Classroom Practice, Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley.

Savignon, S. (1997). Communicative Competence: Theory and Classroom Practice, 2nd ed. New York: McGraw Hill.

Terzian, Alexandra. (1993) The Kids’ Multicultural Art Book. Charlotte, VT: Williamson Publishing Co.

Wiggins, G., and McTighe, J. (1998). Understanding by Design. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.